


Aes Imaginosum

by Sineala



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you very certain you have no brothers, Marcus?" Esca asked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aes Imaginosum

**Author's Note:**

> I would apologize to Plautus and/or Shakespeare, except I'm not actually sorry. Also I am wildly inventing many things about British culture. Wheee!
> 
> For Trope Bingo, the square "secret twin / doppelganger."

"Aquila? Esca?" The legate Marcellus spread his arms wide, holding out his hands toward the still-full kraters on either side of the great dining-room. "More wine?"

"No, thank you, sir," Marcus said, very politely.

Esca smiled -- equally politely, he hoped -- and waved off the slave approaching with a jug. "I am fine also."

"I will have some," said Placidus, his face still twisted into an angry glower. It was the first thing he had said for the entire meal that did not sound like it was meant to be an insult. And he had been glaring at Marcus the entire time. It was all very strange, but then, he was a strange man. Some men were capricious like that. Especially Romans.

Marcellus stretched leisurely on the couch and ran his free hand through his thinning hair. "I say, it was very kind of you to come all the way to Eburacum to deliver your uncle's letter personally. You could have sent a messenger. I would have thought that after your long search for the Eagle that you would be sick of the north."

Marcus gave a very graceful smile in return, perfectly diplomatic. "Ah, but then we wouldn't have gotten a chance to see Eburacum!"

"We?"

The legate's eyes settled on Esca; he suppressed the impulse to look away, even though he knew the man did not mean it unkindly, as his tribune would have done. It was strange, to have Romans look at you as if now you were a man worthy of attention, when six months ago the same man had stared past you, seeing nothing more than a slave--

Esca coughed. "It was my idea. I am from Vinovia, originally, but I had distant relations who lived here once, and I thought I might like to see if they still did. Marcus agreed to accompany me."

It sounded so plain as he told it, so ordinary. He was no bard, and the telling left out all the feeling of it. He remembered how nervous he had been, asking Marcus, after the idea had come to him. He was free now. He was a proper citizen. By Roman law they owed each other nothing, and what if Marcus had thought that too? What if he thought there was nothing between them anymore? And even if he thought them friends, well, it was a long journey to make for a friend. But Marcus had smiled at him, a real smile, and embraced him, hard. _Of course I will go with you_ , he had said, and Esca's heart had soared. _I will go wherever you want, for as long as you want. You are my friend, and you ought to find your kin._

Esca could have kissed him. He didn't.

Marcus was his friend. Only his friend. He should not want more. It was not his place to try. Not if Marcus did not feel the same way.

"Mmm," agreed the legate, interrupting his thoughts. "Very generous of young Aquila."

Esca smiled. "He is a generous man."

Marcus dipped his head, acknowledging the compliment.

On the far couch, the tribune Placidus hissed something under his breath. It sounded -- as did everything else he said -- vaguely insulting, and Esca found his own fingers tightening about his empty wine-cup in anger. Placidus could not hope to be so much as half the man Marcus was!

"Pardon?" Esca asked, icily.

Placidus' voice was honey-sweet, slurred by too much wine, the same voice the worst of his masters had used before bringing out the staves. "It is nothing. I am sure Aquila here is very kind to you. As you say."

Now Marcus was staring. "If I have wronged you in some way, tribune, do tell." A muscle in his jaw twitched, and it was because Esca knew him so well that he could gauge the vast annoyance in him. Esca found himself oddly comforted by the fact that they both disliked this man.

Unexpectedly, the man who spoke was the legate. "Calm yourself, Placidus."

"But--"

"It was an oversight, I am sure. It is only that they did not see us." Marcellus returned his attention to the two of them, and his face was a studied, yet sincere apology. "I am terribly sorry for my tribune's manners. It is just that -- yesterday afternoon, when you were in the forum, Aquila, you must not have seen or heard us. The tribune tried to greet you several times, but you took no notice."

_What?_

Marcus blinked rapidly, his brow furrowed in confusion. He looked about as puzzled as Esca himself felt. "I apologize," he said, finally, and Placidus hmphed an acquiescence. "You are right; I did not see you at all. I must have been thinking about something else."

"Of course," the legate said, with a magnanimous smile. "See, Servius, it was simple!" He laughed and waved at the nearest slave. "More dormice! And another cup of wine!"

As the slaves scurried off to do their master's bidding, Marcus rolled over just enough to be able to look Esca in the face, and shot him a look of utter bewilderment.

They had not been in the forum yesterday. They had not been in Eburacum at all. They had only arrived this morning.

* * *

The meal had lasted a goodly length of time, before Marcellus and Placidus had bade them farewell and retired to the fort for the night. The two of them were still staying here, of course -- the legate kept this fine house in town for the purpose of entertaining in this very manner. Tonight it was cold and quiet, with only the two of them and a handful of slaves.

"What do you think he meant," Marcus asked, as they sat across from each other in the empty atrium, "about seeing me in the forum yesterday?"

Esca shrugged. "He was mistaken, of course. What other explanation is there? I am sure he only saw someone from afar and thought it looked like you."

Marcus considered this, pursing his lips in thought. "Placidus seemed awfully certain in his anger, though. You would think that if he saw a man from a great distance he might have been open to the idea that he was wrong."

"He is _Placidus_." Esca snorted. "Who knows what he thinks?"

The room echoed with Marcus' laughter. "True, true."

They were alone, Esca found himself thinking, foolishly. If he were ever to act, it would be at a time such as now. He would smile, he would hold out his hand, he would ask Marcus to sit closer.

He would do no such thing. He could just imagine what Marcus would do if he said anything: he might pretend not to hear, he might say he was flattered by the attention but felt nothing of the sort. He might say he loved only women, women and perfumed docile slave-boys, soft and meek. He might even say his damned honor compelled him to refuse such affection from a man who had once been his slave. At any rate, Marcus would never say yes.

Esca cleared his throat. "If you'll excuse me," he said, and hated himself as he said it, "I am tired. It has been a long day." _Come to bed with me_ , he did not say.

"Oh, of course." Marcus smiled. "Sleep well."

* * *

In the morning Esca was up early, ready to head to the forum to see if any of the merchants had knowledge of his kin.

"Do you want to come with me?"

Marcus smiled and nodded. His hair was still mussed from sleep, sticking up in a way that only made him more endearing -- and he had to stop thinking this. It wasn't going to help.

"If you want me there, I'll be glad to join you. Unless--" he frowned-- "you think they won't talk to you because I'm a Roman?"

Esca grabbed the end of the morning's bread off the table and broke it in half. "No, no," he mumbled, with his mouth full, "it shouldn't be a problem. I cannot guarantee that they will all speak Latin well, though."

"I. Speak. Little Bit. British," Marcus enunciated, in awful British, with the worst accent Esca had ever heard in his life, which somehow made it even more charming. And then, because he was just that determined, he kept trying: "Since you... what was the word? Teach? Have teach? Teached? You teached me some, remember?"

"Taught," Esca corrected, laughing, and he lobbed the other half of the bread into Marcus' open hands. "Yes, I remember. But you may want to let me do the talking."

"I was going to anyway," said Marcus, reverting to Latin, with a heart-stopping, beautiful grin, and then he shoved the rest of the bread into his mouth. Not very elegantly, true, but O gods, what a mouth. He would kiss softly, Esca imagined, so sweetly; Marcus was gentle like that. He would be kind, caring, solicitous, letting hundreds of kisses fall from his lips like rain in the spring. It was then that Esca realized he was still staring at Marcus' mouth.

Esca was damned for sure.

* * *

"Sidorix and Mesalca?" The potter's wife tucked a strand of copper-red hair behind her ear, frowned, and shook her head. "Can't say as I've heard of them."

They had inquired of everyone in this half of the forum, and no one, no one at all remembered Esca's kin. Even accounting for the fact that some of them must have been recent arrivals, that did not explain it. They couldn't all be new here!

"Thank you anyway," Esca replied, his spirits beginning to ebb, but then the woman caught at his arm.

"Wait," she said, and now her face had narrowed into a suspicious glare. "Do you think I did not notice? Your friend needs to pay up."

"What?"

She turned her glare on Marcus now. "You! Do not deny it! Two days ago you bought one of our best bowls, and gave only half the money. You said you would be back with the rest. Here you are! Where is it?"

Marcus was staring blankly at her. She had spoken in British, of course, and Esca was not sure how much of it Marcus understood. "I-- I--" Marcus stammered out, with his thick Latin accent. "I do not know what you say. Very sorry."

"I think," Esca began, "that you have clearly mistaken my friend here for some other--"

The woman hmphed. "Not likely! I'd recognize that face anywhere. Though he looked a sight happier the other day. You think I am stupid, to fall for that trick? Pfah! So now he pretends to be a Roman! Tomorrow he will pretend to be deaf and mute when I ask for my money! No, no, I'll have it now."

She looked expectantly at Marcus, who continued to look utterly bewildered.

Esca sighed and reached for his money-purse. "How much?"

The woman stared with disdain at Esca's palmful of sesterces, and then she grinned a toothless grin. "All of it."

* * *

"You paid that woman twenty sesterces," said Marcus, on the way back to the villa, "and she sold you nothing." His face was still twisted in confusion.

Well, that answered the question of how much of the conversation Marcus had understood.

"She thought you were someone who owed her money for a pot."

"You paid her for someone else's purchase?" Now Marcus' face bore an entirely different sort of disbelief. "You couldn't have just declined? You couldn't have told her it wasn't me?"

Esca shook his head. "I tried. She was very sure it was you. She would not be dissuaded."

They walked through the streets together, shoulder to shoulder. The stones were rough and uneven in a few places, and wordlessly Esca stepped closer and let Marcus wrap an arm around him for a few steps, to take the weight off his leg. It was well, this way. Marcus did not have to ask for assistance, and Esca... did not have to admit that he enjoyed it far, far too much. He could almost imagine that Marcus wanted to touch him.

Marcus sighed, and it was as if that sound had been part of a conversation only he was having. "First Placidus, now this. Whoever this man is who looks like me, I have to say I am already displeased with him. Who do you think it could be? Some prankster?"

"Are you very certain you have no brothers, Marcus?" Esca asked. He laughed as he said it, and Marcus promptly joined him. It was a ridiculous thought. It deserved to be laughed at.

Marcus was still chuckling. "We Romans are not all like the twins, I am afraid."

"What, no she-wolf raised you?"

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "I thought you meant the Dioscuri. You're right; I suppose there are several sets of twins."

Another example came to Esca's mind. "And you're also going to tell me you're not like that play?"

"That was a play! It wasn't real!"

A traveling theater troupe had come to Calleva a few months ago and put on a comic play about two Greek brothers, identical twins raised separately, with the one ignorant of the other's existence, and all the trouble that arose when one came to Epidamnus, the town of the other. Mostly the play had involved them being mistaken for each other by their slaves and courtesans and a parasite named Peniculus. Marcus had been practically crying with laughter the whole time, but Esca had thought that it was a silly, contrived story and surely someone would have noticed, even if the brothers had looked the same. At least there had been singing.

Marcus was grinning in truth now, probably remembering how much he had enjoyed the play. "I have no brothers! I would know if I did, wouldn't I?"

Esca opened his mouth to agree, but then the thought occurred to him: Menaechmus of Epidamnus did not know in the play, either.

Now he was being truly ridiculous. He couldn't actually be considering it. It had only been a story. Things like that only happened in stories. Of course Marcus would know.

* * *

"I was thinking I would go back to the forum today," said Esca, over breakfast the next morning.

Marcus made an agreeing noise, his mouth full of bread. "You mean, because you did not have a chance to talk to everyone before that incident with the potter's woman?"

"That, and it's a market-day."

There would be more people in Eburacum's forum than there had been the other day; there would be people come from miles around to sell grain or animals, and yet more people looking to buy. Surely some of these people would have heard of his kin.

"So it is."

"Are you coming with me again?"

Marcus shook his head. "It is a kind offer, but if it is well with you I think I would rather stay here; I want to write a letter to Uncle letting him know that we have arrived and seen Marcellus, as he asked, and the sooner I write it the sooner it can be carried off to him."

He knew Marcus labored over his words, having lived with him long enough to see him try to write several similar letters. Writing did not come easily to him, and, even if Marcus knew the letter's recipient well, he would agonize over whether it should have this phrase or that. He would not quickly dictate a letter to a slave -- no, he would try to write it personally, and it would take several hours, with his scratchings of drafts filling a great many tablets. If Esca could write, he would have done it for him to spare him the ordeal.

"Well, then, I suppose I will see you when I get back?"

"Of course. I hope you find the news you seek." Marcus smiled at him. It was a true smile, wishing him luck; Marcus was honestly happy for him. His face transformed when he smiled, and privately Esca thought that Marcus should smile so all the time. It had been months and months of pain before he ever saw such a smile on Marcus' face, and he treasured them all, even when he had been Marcus' slave and half-hated himself for it.

No, he told himself, these thoughts had no good end. To the forum.

* * *

The sausage-seller looked at Esca for long moments, and Esca could see the answer to his question written on the old man's face before he even opened his mouth: the man looked away, bit his lip, shifted uncomfortably. "You were kin to Sidorix and Mesalca, you say?"

_Were_. Not _are_.

Esca nodded numbly. "Distant kin, yes. I was hoping they were here. None of-- none of my clan is left alive." He took a deep breath, the cold air stabbing at his lungs, and suddenly felt very, very alone in the world.

He wished Marcus had come with him.

The man's eyes softened in sympathy. "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but they are gone beyond the sunset. The winter fevers took them both. Her first, and then him, not too long after. He did not fight much; I think it was hard for him to be without his wife."

"He loved her very much." It was one of the few things he remembered about Sidorix. He had been a child when they had met last. "Can you tell me... when?"

"Three years ago, perhaps? Four? I am very sorry."

He had been a slave still; he could not have come then if he'd wanted. Not that he would have been able to do anything against the sickness, but he would have seen his family one last time. Likely he'd been in Calleva, locked in Beppo's chains, listening to the other fighters laugh and boast about their chances at the wooden sword as if they thought they still had any chance at all. As if they thought they would one day be free, and not in shackles until they died.

Esca shut his eyes and took a slow breath, then another. Marcus had freed him. And it seemed his kin all had died even before he met Marcus; it would have been too late no matter what, even had Marcus freed him the very day they had met. But he was free now. Alone, but free. It would have to be enough. And at least he had one friend in the world. Not precisely alone, then, even if he wanted more than Marcus could ever give him.

When he opened his eyes, the man was staring at him in concern. "Are you... will you be all right? Can I do anything?" He held out his wares with a helpless look. "Sausage?"

Esca summoned up a weak smile.

"Free of charge?" the man tried, and Esca did not want to ponder how awful his face must have looked, to make a seller give away his product.

"No, no," Esca assured him. "I will be well. I suppose I should have expected it. Thank you for telling me."

He turned away, and... there was Marcus at the other end of the forum. Even though the crowd was at least half Britons, with the height one would expect, Marcus still stood out, recognizable as always. Esca could find him anywhere.

_What?_ Marcus had said he would not come. Well, at least he could speak to Marcus right now about the unhappy news; there was no reason for them to stay in Eburacum any longer now.

"Marcus! Come here!" he called out, now in Latin, raising his hand, pushing between a pair of overburdened slaves, trying to get closer. "I'm over here! Hey, Marcus!"

Marcus' head shot up and his eyes locked with Esca's. Then an expression of utter dismay crossed his features. He looked down and... began to move away?

Marcus didn't want to see him. Possibilities ran through Esca's mind, gathered and discarded, as he pressed hastily through the crowd, toward Marcus, who was still fleeing. Had Marcus gotten some unexpected ill news? No, no, even if he had, and had come to tell Esca about it, he would want to tell him, and not just meet his eyes across the forum and walk away. Unless the ill news concerned Esca. Unless it made him not want to talk to him.

_He's figured it out. By the Light of the Sun._ Esca swore quietly to himself and pushed on, miserable. _He knows how I feel about him. He hates it. He is horrified._ What else could it be? He kept no other secrets from his friend.

Marcus began to run.

"Wait!" Esca cried out. "Whatever it is, Marcus, at least wait for me!"

But Marcus didn't stop. He only looked back, once, a quick glance over his shoulder to see that Esca was still following him, and he ran on, dodging rocks and men and mule-carts.

Even as he sank into sadness and fear, Esca gritted his teeth and followed. It took some effort, for Marcus was unexpectedly fast today. His leg must have been paining him not at all, or perhaps in the depths of his feeling he simply did not notice the pain, like a warrior who fights until he falls, believing himself unharmed, never realizing he is bleeding out until he simply has no strength left. Esca hated to think that the latter could be the truth.

"Come back!" Esca yelled. "If you will just come back and talk to me for one minute--"

Marcus didn't even look up. He only ran furiously on. And this wasn't like Marcus at all; if Marcus was angry with him about something, he would confront him. He would not act like this. How could Esca have done this to him? How could he appall him this much, that Marcus would not even look him in the face?

_You know exactly how. You know he doesn't want you_ , something quiet and ashamed said within him, and Esca shuddered.

He almost missed it as Marcus slipped into a narrow alleyway between a tavern and a butcher shop. Esca turned just behind him to find that the ground was slick with offal, and Marcus had slowed, his arms outstretched. Esca leapt forward in one last desperate burst of speed, landed, slid, reached out, and just barely managed to wrap one hand around Marcus' forearm. 

Panting, he pulled Marcus around to face him. "Marcus," he began, "I don't know what--"

He stopped, looking down at their joined hands.

The hand Esca was still holding was inked, dark blue spirals peeking out from under the edges of the sleeved tunic, all across the back of his bare hand; from the way the marking flowed Esca knew there was going to be ink all up his arm, curved and banded. It was the design of a warrior of the Brigantes, the same ink he ought to have worn by right, had his clan not been destroyed before he had the chance to earn all of it.

Esca stared in shock as the man jerked his arm out of Esca's slack grip, and he looked up, and up, at this stranger who wore Marcus' face.

It wasn't Marcus.

It was, and it wasn't.

But for the inking, the man could have been Marcus' twin. Their features were identical, or near enough that Esca did not think he could have told them apart without a great deal of practice. He was perhaps a little thinner than Marcus, and his hair a touch longer, but they had the same build. The same hands. Gods. He had Marcus' very eyes.

The way he held himself -- that was different, in a horrible, unsettling way, as if some strange spirit lived inside Marcus' body. Even among the Epidii, even when Marcus had been at his worst, there had been an assurance to his stance: _I am a Roman citizen and you cannot break me._ As awful as it had been then, Esca had been grateful for it; he knew that, whatever he did, Marcus would come out of this with his mind. With his soul.

This man did not stand like that. Oh, there was bravado in him, but there was nothing of the same certainty to back it. He knew he lived at the sufferance of others. That, and he was younger. Esca scrutinized the man's face. Much younger, he thought, maybe a decade, and the harshness of life in the north had likely worn him down so the two looked of an age.

And then the man started to talk.

"What in the world is this?" he said in perfect, fluent British, a native accent that Marcus -- Esca's Marcus -- would not have been able to fake in a thousand years. "I have not come to the city in a year, and now I find that strangers are yelling at me in Latin and chasing me across the forum? The other day it was those damned soldiers, and today it is one of my own countrymen!" He glared.

Esca stared at him. He thought his mouth might be hanging open. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. What was this?

"Do you not understand me?" The man sighed. "Don't tell me, you're some southerner who only speaks Latin and no one has bothered to teach you your proper language." Naturally, he said this in British.

"Who _are_ you?" Esca managed, finally.

"Oh, so you do understand me?" The man who wasn't Marcus was angry, obviously so, but Esca had the sense that if he pushed back, this man would fall, with nothing to sustain him beyond bluster. Marcus would never have fallen. Still, the other continued on: "You come here and confront me, and you ask who _I_ am? No, no, it is you who should be telling me!"

He had a point.

"My apologies," said Esca, as graciously as he could. "I am Esca, son of Cunoval, who once commanded five hundred warriors. While my clan still lived, we bore the blue war-shield."

A flicker of something that might have been recognition lit in the stranger's eyes, but then was gone again, as if the thing had never been well-known to him in the first place. "I think I have heard of your clan," he ventured. "I was young when they were lost. But that does not explain why you have come here looking for me."

Esca hissed in exasperation. "It was not you I was-- it was because you looked--" He took a breath and tried again. "Perhaps this would be easier if you told me who you were." Perhaps then there would be an explanation for how this stranger could be so similar to Marcus. Why would the gods want to play this trick on them?

"Atar," the man said, a common enough name, and then grimaced, as if he did not want to say the rest. "Son of Veloriga."

Esca found that all useful speech had deserted him. "Ah. Oh."

There were only a handful of reasons to give one's mother's name, and they all came down to essentially the same one. Esca looked up at the man with a sudden uncomfortable rush of sympathy, and he knew where the reticence had come from. Poor bastard. Still, it wasn't a rare story, especially in these parts, where the Romans had come and laid their forts, and settlements had grown around them. There were always soldiers, who wanted--

Oh. Oh _no_.

It made perfect sense. 

It was going to break Marcus' heart.

"Are you well?" asked Atar, his face wrinkling into an expression of concern, like and unlike what Marcus would have done. He wasn't truly concerned for Esca, of course, but there was no reason he should have been.

Esca's heart pounded as though they were still running; he thought it might have skipped a beat. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck.

"Your father was a Roman," he rasped out.

Atar blanched, and then colored deep with anger; in this, he and Marcus were frighteningly similar. Too late, Esca realized Atar must have been taunted all his life for just this. He wondered if Atar was going to punch him.

"What of it?" Atar snapped back. "I am no less a man of the Brigantes because there is Roman blood in me. Rome does not claim me, and I do not claim them either. And I am not the only half-Roman in the tribes. Do you think we are all perfect like you? Do you think we can all be chieftains' sons? At least my clan still lives!"

So there was a sting in him after all, Esca thought, and he tried to remember how to breathe past the spike of anguished grief.

Bracing against the wall to balance himself, Esca held up a hand. "I did not mean it as an insult."

"Oh?" Atar's face was entirely dubious, one eyebrow lifted. "Then how?" It seemed he could not conceive of it being anything else.

"My best friend in all the world is a Roman," said Esca, before he could think better of it; likely it was not a very convincing argument.

It wasn't. Atar still stared. "So?"

Esca took another breath. "Do you... do you know who your father was?"

Of course he wouldn't. They never did.

But Atar only shrugged. "Only what my mother has told me of him. He died before I was born."

"But you know of him?" said Esca, surprised. He knew something, anything at all of the man? It hadn't been rape? Perhaps, Esca thought bleakly, perhaps that would be easier for Marcus to accept. Or harder, if it had been something more than base animal lust.

Atar's look was doubtful. "Of course. My mother says he loved her very much."

_Oh, Marcus._

"Now what?" Atar began to glare once again, misinterpreting Esca's reaction. "They are not all heartless. Surely you with your Roman friend would agree, hmm?"

Esca changed the subject. "Perhaps it would be easier if I told you of your father."

"You know nothing of--"

"He was a Roman soldier," Esca began, "and I am sure that you look very like him. Twenty years ago he was the first-rank centurion of the Ninth Legion, and he was stationed here with the rest of the Legion, until they marched north and never returned."

"Guesses," said Atar, and Esca could see him struggling to remain unimpressed. "All guesses. You can tell how old I am by looking. You could have asked anyone what legion had been here then."

"I guessed that he was primus pilus, did I?"

Atar's jaw worked, but he said nothing.

"He was Italian. From the city of Clusium, in Etruria." He tried to recall what else Marcus had said of his father. "He owned a farm there."

Atar's eyes were wide. "What-- how--?"

"He wore a ring. A green ring, an emerald ring with a flaw in the stone, with a dolphin carved into it." Esca leaned in and lowered his voice. "His name was Aquila." And he let himself smile. "Tell me, did I guess correctly?"

"How do you know this?" Atar's voice was no more than a whisper.

"Because," Esca said, "I know your brother."

"I have a brother?" Atar's expression was joyful, incredulous, as if Esca had given him uncountable riches.

Esca nodded. "He looks exactly like you. He is visiting Eburacum as well, though he lives in the south. With me. And I thought you were him, which is why I followed you," he added, with a grin. "His name is Marcus Aquila."

"Oh." Atar's face fell. "A Roman."

Just like that, he would dismiss Marcus, knowing nothing of him except that he was a Roman? _He is different_ , Esca wanted to say. _I hated them more than you do, once. He is not like the rest._ But he knew Atar wouldn't believe him. He wouldn't have believed himself.

Instead, Esca stared back. "Your father was a Roman, and this surprises you?"

"I did not expect to have a brother."

"Do you want to meet him?" Esca did not know he would make the offer before the words fell from his mouth; it was presumptuous, anyway, to agree on Marcus' behalf, for perhaps Marcus would not want to meet the living proof that his beloved father was less than perfect. "I will have to ask him, of course, and tell him about you."

Atar stared into the distance, thoughtfully. "What would you do, if you were in my place?"

Esca swallowed. "All my brothers are seven years dead," he said, and this time he almost didn't picture their faces, their twisted, ruined bodies, the way the soldiers had left them. "If I found I had more kin living, I would want to meet them, no matter who they were."

After a long while, Atar nodded. "My mother and I are staying just outside the walls, with Maglos and his family. Ask anyone in town for directions. Does he speak British?"

Esca shook his head.

"My mother speaks little Latin, less than I do, but I think she would like to see him as well, if you could come to translate. If you and he would come, perhaps, the day after tomorrow, you will be welcome. If my-- if my brother decides he would rather not meet me, you need not send a message. It isn't worth it." He had the expression of a man accustomed to disappointment. Accustomed to being ignored.

"I will see what he says."

Atar smiled. "I hope it is yes."

* * *

Marcus was alone in the little office of the legate's villa, surrounded by tablets and tablets of half-finished letter openings. He was staring at them in frustration -- though, Esca thought, his mood was likely to be even worse, very soon.

"It is only for your uncle, Marcus." Esca smiled in a manner he hoped was encouraging. "I am sure he will not fault you if your words are not exactly perfect."

"No, but I want them to be." Marcus pushed the tablets away, then sighed and gestured toward an empty chair. Esca sat. "You're back sooner than I expected. Good news, I hope?"

"Strange news," Esca replied, and Marcus stared at him, for of course that didn't make any sense. "I am not sure how you will find it."

Marcus stabbed a stylus absently into the nearest tablet, over and over. "Me? You were the one looking for your kin."

_Yes, and I came across yours._ But he did not say that.

"My kin... are dead." It was easier to say than he had thought it might be; his throat did not tighten about the words. "A few years back. So they told me."

Marcus stretched out a clumsy, awkward hand -- the one that wasn't still holding the stylus -- patting Esca on the arm. "I am sorry for your loss."

"Thank you."

At that moment Esca wished that he could lean into Marcus' embrace, that he could take comfort in it, that they could stay thus forever. Instead, he was going to ruin all of it.

"I find it sad," Marcus began, but the sentence ended high, as if there were still words left in it. He pulled his hand back. The absence was acute, sharp, not quite pain.

"Hmm?"

"You asked how I would find it." Marcus' voice was patient.

Esca took a deep breath, and then another, ragged and raw on the exhale. "That is not the news I meant."

Marcus was, of course, honestly curious. "Then what?"

"I found out what the problem was. With Placidus, and with the woman yesterday, both of them thinking you were someone you weren't." Esca's voice came out of him low, flat, emotionless. "It seems you do have a brother."

Marcus started chuckling. "Esca, we discussed this yesterday--"

"I am not joking." He spoke louder than he meant to, the words snapping out of him, harshly. "By Lugh the Light of the Sun, I swear I am not. I chased him halfway across the forum because I thought he was you. He looks so much like you, it was as if I had been looking you in the face. If you had been a Brigantes warrior."

Marcus' mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. He said nothing.

"I know it sounds unbelievable," Esca tried again, "but he is a son of your father. He agreed with him being the man as I described him. He knew the name, and the ring."

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"It can't be true." Marcus' face was several shades paler; he shook his head, violently. "There's no way it can be true. How would my father have even-- no. No."

The tablet clattered on the desk, and the stylus with it. Marcus was staring down at his hands, his eyes not even focused.

"I know very little of soldiers," Esca ventured, when the raspy hiss of Marcus' breath had subsided, a bit. Now he might be willing to talk. "But is this not a thing that happens often on campaign, when men are lonely? They find companionship with the local women. Atar -- that is his name -- Atar said that your father never forced the woman--"

Marcus' head snapped up, and his eyes were as fire. "My father never would have done such a thing! By force or no!"

Esca found himself wondering if Marcus had ever, even once, bought a whore he regretted. Slept with his best friend's girl. Gambled away all his pay. Gotten blind stinking drunk and had to stand watch anyway. Made a bad decision. Done anything, made any mistakes that a normal man made. Who was he convinced he had to be? Who was he convinced his father had been?

"But this is a thing that men do, is it not?" Esca asked, trying to be gentle. Perhaps if he could draw some kind of comparison... "Were there not such women for you, when you were in the army?"

"No," Marcus said, through gritted teeth, and all at once he rose from his seat, towering over Esca. "For me there were _no women_."

And he stalked out of the room.

Esca stared after him, trying to think through it all. If Marcus hadn't, really hadn't, and he held his father to the same impossible standard -- well, that explained part of the reaction. And no doubt it was a shock. But he hadn't thought Marcus would deny the possibility quite so much.

Elsewhere in the house, there was a crash, and a yell. Marcus' voice.

But Marcus did not call out for him, and Esca, wretched, did not know if Marcus wanted his help. He was not sure he would have, if he were Marcus. He stood and paced the tiny office, and after long minutes he decided. He had done this to Marcus; it was his task to right it. And if Marcus did not want to talk to him, he could at least see if he was unharmed.

He found Marcus in the little bedroom the legate had allotted him for the stay. From beyond the curtain there came a low, anguished noise. He thought perhaps Marcus was crying.

"Marcus?" He was not about to burst in on him; he respected his friend's privacy that much. "Are you-- do you--" _Do you hate me now, for telling you this?_

"You might as well come in." The words were a low mumble, as if he didn't care either way.

Esca pushed the curtain aside to find the chair kicked against the wall, and Marcus himself curled up on the bed. He hadn't been crying, but he was folded in on himself, shaking. Esca would have preferred the crying.

"He loved my mother," Marcus said, thickly, the raw voice of a child betrayed. "I know he loved her. He did."

Esca took a perch on the end of the bed. "I believe you."

In Marcus' mind, Esca thought, he was ten again, and his father was invincible, untouchable, forever the ideal Roman, the best father. The man was frozen in time, in Marcus' memory. If he had lived, if Marcus' mother had lived, perhaps he would have learned that his parents too were human. But he never had to. Until now.

"Do you think she knew? My mother?"

Esca gave it some thought. "Well, did he ever come back for leave after he'd been posted to Britain?"

Marcus shook his head. "No, before he got the posting was the last--" he choked a little-- "the last time I saw him. He kissed me and told me to be a good boy and mind my mother. I--" and here he gave a dry chuckle-- "was an arrogant little brat, and I thought I was so grown-up. I remember being very angry because I was a whole ten years old, not a baby. You know how it is."

"I know." Esca was sure he himself had been even more insufferable, if only because he knew how much his younger brothers had suffered him. 

"If I'd known it was going to be the last time--"

"No one can blame you." He wished he dared touch Marcus. "You were a child. I am sure he loved you. And your mother."

"But now you tell me he was--" Marcus' hand scrabbled forth across the blankets, waved back and forth-- "entertaining the camp-followers! That he had another son! What if he had a woman in every city? What if I have a dozen more half-siblings? I don't know." Marcus turned his face away. "I don't know anything about him."

True, he was dead. Marcus' mother was dead. He had mentioned relatives in Rome, but not very positively, so-- oh, of course! "You could ask your uncle?"

"I did, once." Marcus scrubbed at his face.

"And?"

Marcus' stare was frightening, glassy-eyed. "He said my father was the perfect Roman."

"Oh." And somehow Marcus had it in his head that the perfect Roman was always faithful. Or maybe just his father.

"I don't know what to think," Marcus said, sounding more helpless than ever.

"He wants to meet you."

Esca had not meant it to come out so abruptly, and Marcus was silent for a long while. His face didn't change; he had used up all available emotion already, and now he lay there, drained, passive, a dry riverbed. He blinked a few times. That was it.

"I suppose," Marcus said, and that was all the affirmation he was going to give.

* * *

When the day finally came, Esca was, unexpectedly, more nervous than Marcus. Marcus had grown quiet, unreadably so, but Esca was beset by dismay. These were his people. Not his clan, true, but they were Brigantes, and he had not truly seen any of his fellow tribesmen in years. He knew how he would look to them: a chieftain's son wearing a poor man's dull clothing, a man with a boy's half-inked shoulder, a Briton who called Romans his friend, who chose to live with them and not among his own kind. Would they judge him for knowing Marcus, or Marcus for him? He did not know.

They walked in silence through the orderly streets of Eburacum, out past the walls, where old thatched roundhouses valiantly held their ground against the ways of Rome. The paths were not neat and paved here, and as Marcus leaned on his arm for aid, the face he made when he looked down was apprehensive: a feeling at last.

"Promise me you won't say I'm your slave." Marcus' mouth quirked in a smile, as if he had meant it to be a joke, but Esca knew there was some wisp of real fear behind it.

Esca put his other hand over Marcus', a brief brush of reassurance. "I promise."

They were close enough now that there were people, and a man cleaning a deer looked up in confused recognition. "Atar! I thought you-- oh. The boy wasn't kidding when he said you looked alike." This must be Maglos. "Go on in, eh? They're in the house."

"Thank you," Esca said, when Marcus had not replied.

Perhaps it would have been easier if Marcus had dressed today as a Roman, in his fine narrow-striped tunic, in his pristine toga. But Marcus had walked out of his room in the same clothes he had worn to the north, the plain tunic and braccae that any tribesman wore. _What?_ he had said. _It's cold today._ And Esca had thought that perhaps the people here would like him better for it, but it did lead to more misunderstandings.

"He says they're inside," Esca relayed.

Marcus took a deep breath, and there was a glimmer of a smile on his face. "All right."

Within the house, two figures rose from their place by the hearth-fire. One was Atar, and the woman who stood with him could be none other than Veloriga, his mother. She was a small woman with a kind face, younger than Esca had expected; gray was only beginning to streak her pale hair. For long moments, the four of them regarded each other in frozen silence. Veloriga brought her hand to her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears, as if she had been witnessing some great work of the gods, but she said nothing. 

Now that Esca was seeing them in the same place, he was certain that Atar and Marcus were not twins, but just barely so. Marcus was clearly the elder, and built a little more heavily; Atar was narrower, a touch shorter. But they had the same features, the same face, the unmistakable stamp of a shared father. 

Marcus' eyes were wide, and finally, finally, he offered an attempt at an introduction, in his halting British. "My name is Marcus Flavius Aquila."

"Yes," Veloriga said, and her voice was thick with unshed tears. Esca watched her gaze drop from Marcus' face to the emerald dolphin ring on his hand, and then rise back up. "That was his name as well."

Atar spoke, then. "Greetings." His face was still pale.

Marcus smiled weakly. "I greet you." His British accent was worse, but surely it was good enough. And then he took another breath. "Brother."

In the silence Atar made a tiny noise, a catch in his throat, and said nothing. But he smiled in return.

"Oh!" said Veloriga. "My manners!"

And she went to the table in the corner and came back with the guest-cup, sloshing with fragrant metheglin. This she offered with both hands to Marcus, who looked down at her, then darted a nervous glance over at Esca.

"As I told you," Esca whispered, in Latin. "Drink first and then say the words."

Marcus nodded. He drank, gave the cup back, and said, very slowly, in his labored British, "Good fortune on the... uh... woman's house?"

Veloriga smiled. "Close enough," she said, and she passed the cup to Esca, who took the smallest possible sip of the heady mead and said the right words, all with the strange feeling in his bones that this was so familiar, and yet it no longer felt as though it was the way it ought to be. It had been years since he had done this. Too many years of curt Roman greetings, with no word for him except the commands a master gives any slave.

Atar, too, drank and made his greetings. "I am glad you and your friend have come," he added, in halting Latin. There was still a bit of wariness in his face.

"I as well," said Marcus, again in his own poor British.

They continued on, then, each making his own attempts at the other's language, punctuated with pointing and hand-signs. Esca would have stepped in to translate -- after all, that was why he was here -- had Veloriga not laid her hand on his arm.

"Let them talk to each other," she said, guessing at his intention. "As much as they can. It's why they're here." She smiled. "My son said you live with him, in the south?"

Esca nodded. "In Calleva."

"A long way from home for Cunoval's son." There was a glimmer of recognition in her eyes, and Esca wondered if she had known him as well.

"It has been a long journey," Esca agreed. "Much of it... not by my choice."

Anyone would understand what that meant, and Veloriga nodded thoughtfully and managed to answer the question he didn't ask. "Do you know," she said, "I think I met you, once? Your people had come to trade horses, and your parents had brought you. You were a baby; I do not think you remember."

He shook his head. "No, but I am--" Somehow the sentence stuck in his throat. "I am pleased that they are remembered."

"No one will forget what your clan did," she said, her eyes somber, and then she gave a little smile. "Still, I am happy that you have taken up with Aquila, if I may say so."

"Truly?"

He had not expected that reaction. Everyone knew about Romans. What kind of man would have stayed with Romans when he could have come home, come back to Brigantes lands? Who would have been pleased about his choice?

"Of course." She gestured towards where Marcus and Atar were still talking; Marcus appeared to be muddling through an explanation of his posting to Britain. "It is as if I have another child, and one who is the beloved of a chieftain's son, no less. I am glad to hear that you are his companion. He has done so well for himself already!"

Esca choked and hoped neither of the men had heard, and especially that Marcus had not. A Briton would have taken it for the excellent compliment it was, but he did not want to explain that to Marcus. Particularly because it was true. For him. Just not for Marcus.

"What?" Veloriga frowned. "You think I will say, oh, no, we do not love Romans? I, who clearly loved his father? You think I would fault you for this?"

Was it that obvious? Did he go around with his affection for Marcus writ upon his face, like vulgar city graffiti anyone could read, scrawled on the walls? Did passers-by know that he loved him? Could they tell everything he desired to do with him?

"You flatter the both of us," Esca managed, unsteadily, for at least that much was true, "but it is not as you think. Romans-- they find these matters unwelcome. They are hesitant about such things."

Veloriga's face fell in disappointment and pity, and that told Esca that, yes, it must be obvious. Perhaps even more obvious than if he'd gone and scratched all his desires in the bricks of Eburacum, next to the rest of the slurs.

"His father was not hesitant with me in that respect," she hazarded.

Esca hurried to clarify. "No, no, it is different. They believe different things when it is two men, free men. They would not-- Marcus would not think it was right." 

"Oh," she said. "Well, I would not know about that. Are you very certain?"

Thankfully, at that point Marcus rescued him from having to say anything more. The flailing in his conversation had become intense, and both Marcus and Atar looked frustrated. Marcus kept pointing at the dolphin ring; it seemed he was trying to explain how it was he had it when his -- their -- father had been lost in the north while wearing it.

"Esca!" Marcus called out. "Tell me, how do I say _eum qui anulum patri surripuerat interfeci_ in British?"

Esca relayed the words. "Marcus says to say he killed the man who had stolen the ring from his father." Since he was already talking, he decided to explain a little more of it. "The man was the chieftain of the Seal People, an Epidii clan. And they would surely have killed us if we had not fought him; we were in the middle of taking back the Eagle."

"Us?" This was from Atar, though both of them were staring at him. "I understand why Marcus went to find the standard -- he has explained that, I think -- but you went with him?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Esca saw Marcus wince; he had at least understood the first word. The truth was so complicated. What was he to say? _Marcus was my master, and he ordered me to._

Then he realized that what was in his heart was simpler. "He needed the help. And I wanted to. He is my friend."

He would have gone with Marcus anyway. If he'd had the choice. And he'd always had the choice, even if it hadn't been given in words. It would have been easy to run, to disappear into the crowd of one of the towns, to simply ride off into one of the glens. Marcus would never have found him. No Roman could have. And there had been all those nights Marcus had left him on first watch, alone and armed, while Marcus curled up so trustingly in his blankets. He had made the choice a thousand times.

"Ah." Atar smiled and seemed to relax, in a way he had not before; there was a certain ease about his eyes. Marcus' eyes. He remembered when Marcus had smiled at him like that for the first time, out by his uncle's lake, in the bright autumn sunlight. "You did say that, yes."

"And I did mean it," Esca replied.

Marcus stared between the two of them, confused -- for they were still speaking British -- and with a vaguely suspicious frown. But he said nothing.

"I see," said Atar, and Esca wondered just what he had seen.

* * *

They talked for hours, until the sun was low in the sky, and it reminded Esca of nothing so much as the days of his youth -- the impression, of course, having been aided by that being their conversation topic. Marcus began, mustering up all the British he knew, and he told a great many tales of his childhood in Clusium that Esca listened to avidly, for Marcus had not spoken much about it before. Translating it for Atar presented some difficulty, as Esca could not think of a good way to explain flash-the-fingers until Marcus offered to demonstrate it, and the conversation devolved into a game. By the end of it everyone could count much better in each other's languages.

"He was kind," Marcus said, finally. "He was a good man."

Atar smiled. "I can tell that he loved you very much."

"He would have loved you too."

While Marcus' stories had naturally focused on his memories of his father -- these, Atar drank in -- Atar's stories seemed carefully calculated to avoid how he had grown up fatherless.

"Boar hunts!" said Atar, with relish, miming a spear-throw. "And wolf hunts! After I was made a man -- why, I can still remember the first hunt I was on! There is nothing like that. Is it akin to Roman battle? Do they hunt wolves in Italy? I heard Romans liked wolves."

Esca eyed Atar and tried not to laugh. He was twenty at most; it couldn't have been more than three years ago. Still, it probably seemed like a long time to him.

Marcus was staring blankly; they'd lost him somewhere. Well, Esca would summarize in a moment.

"Boar or wolf, friend?" Esca asked. "For the first hunt."

"Oh, boar, of course. Was it not boar for you? Or did your people prefer another hunt, for the ritual?"

Esca tried and failed to suppress the wince, the sudden pang of sorrow. Atar had seen him. How did he not know what it meant? Esca pulled his cloak away from his arm, showing where his shoulder was only half-inked, with just the smallest bands he'd had at sixteen. He did not have the full, proper ink of a warrior, the one he had been due to receive at the final ceremony the next summer.

"My people did not survive long enough to name me a warrior." He twisted away, his vision distorted with tears.

"Esca, what--?" This was Marcus, stricken with both concern and confusion. "What are you saying? What is upsetting you?"

"Nothing," he mumbled.

There was a hand on his arm. He looked up, and it was Atar. With his gaze clouded, the man looked even more like Marcus. It was dizzying, the two of them next to each other, and Atar's face wore a familiar gentle expression, infinitely kind.

"Someone here could."

Esca stared at him. "What?"

"Someone could name you a warrior, a new spear." Atar shrugged, with an innocent guileless face; Esca had seen that look on Marcus too, and perhaps that explained the sudden surge of fondness. "I know it is not the done thing, but, well, you are certainly a man now, eh? I would speak for you, on your behalf."

"You would do that for me?"

Atar's smile had something knowing and hidden. "Of course. Besides, that way you will do Marcus here honor, eh? So that no one would have cause to complain that he has bound himself to a man who is not a proper warrior? We don't want the Romans thinking you are an unsuitable paramour."

At least Marcus surely did not know that British word. It was archaic. Thank the gods.

Esca was torn between three emotions: one, immense gratitude; two, the desire to explain that Romans did not actually care about his own status; three, annoyance at himself for being so obvious, and at Atar for mentioning it in Marcus' hearing. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opted for the gratitude.

"Thank you. Thank you so much." And he did mean it. But he meant everything else, too. Still, he found that he could not stop grinning. It would not be like his family, but he could be Brigantes again.

"Esca?" Marcus repeated, more urgently. "What are you talking about?"

He couldn't explain it. How could he?

He said the first thing that came to mind: "British things."

"Oh," said Marcus, almost glumly. "British things. Indeed."

* * *

It being time to leave, eventually they all made their way to the edge of Maglos' land. Veloriga embraced Marcus, urging him to come again, soon.

"We can stay in Eburacum for a bit," Marcus said.

Atar glanced over at Esca. "You would have to, for the feast; it will be soon, though."

"I will certainly come for that, if you would have me. Send us word?"

Atar nodded, and then abruptly Esca found himself being hugged. He had not expected that. Marcus was not so demonstrative with him. It was not some Roman habit -- Esca had known other Romans who were less restrained. No, this was solely Marcus. Still, Atar looked so much like him. If he squinted-- if he pretended--

No, Esca told himself. Now he was just being disgusting and perverse.

"Feast?" asked Marcus. He had understood that much. Atar let Esca go to nod encouragingly at Marcus.

"I'll tell you later," Esca said.

And then Atar was enfolding Marcus in his arms, hugging him even harder.

"My brother," Atar said. "Go well, and remember me."

"I will not forget," Marcus said, and he said it like an oath.

* * *

Then everything was different.

On the walk back to town, Marcus was completely and utterly silent. At first Esca thought he was only thinking, pondering everything he had said, considering his new relations, and so he began to venture questions on that theme.

"So, Marcus," he asked, "how was it?"

Marcus said nothing.

"Did you like Atar?"

Still nothing.

It was then that Esca realized that the silence was a kind of weapon, and he did not know what to do about that. What was Marcus punishing him for? What had he said? Well, he had said a lot of things, but Marcus had not understood the more... incriminating... parts. Esca had not taught him those words, he was sure. No, his secrets were safe. Surely Marcus would have spoken if he'd understood any of that.

Still, there was nothing to do but wait for Marcus to talk. So he walked at Marcus' still-glowering side, all the way to Marcellus' still-empty villa. By silent consent they took seats on couches at the opposite sides of the atrium.

Finally, Marcus raised his head. His face was the very picture of wretched sadness. 

"You like Atar."

Esca stared at him in disbelief. "What?"

"You like Atar more than me," Marcus repeated, and his words were twisted with ugly jealousy. "Do you think I am stupid? I saw how you were smiling and laughing and talking of your British things. You looked so happy. And you won't even tell me what he said, except that he's inviting you to feasts! What am I supposed to think?"

Oh, Marcus. How had he gotten it exactly wrong?

"It isn't like that--"

"I don't blame you," Marcus continued, his head drooping, "if you like him better. Why shouldn't you? He is everything I am not. He is young, he is not a worthless cripple--" Marcus spat out the words-- "and he is a man of your own people. Of course you would rather stay in the north. I understand. His friendship would be more palatable than mine."

Esca wanted to shake him. "I think you are an _idiot_ ," he retorted, and, oh, perhaps he shouldn't have started that way; Marcus' head snapped up, betrayed. "He is a sullen little cub, and it will be years before he is a man at all, even though his people call him one. How in the world could you think I liked him better? What about him do you think I like? It is not him I swore an oath to!"

"But he was saying--"

"He was offering me the chance to be a warrior, a proper warrior, as I never had the chance to with my people."

This did not convince Marcus. "I can't offer you that."

Esca shook his head. "He was doing it for you. You don't understand."

"How does it involve me?" Marcus squinted.

"He thought you would like it," Esca hissed, suddenly angrier than ever. "He thought you would be proud." And then the rest of the words tumbled out of his mouth, and he was up out of his seat, storming across the room toward Marcus. "By all the gods, Marcus, he thinks we're lovers! They both do. Did you not understand that?"

He had not meant to say that much, but at least he had not parted with his own secrets. Marcus had stopped his ranting, abruptly, and there were bright spots of color in his cheeks.

"Oh."

"Indeed," Esca agreed. "So if you'll kindly--"

Marcus held up a hand. "What did you tell them?"

"The truth, of course." Esca looked bleakly ahead. "That you were Roman and you did not care for men and you did not care for me in that manner."

There was a very long silence.

"Esca," Marcus said, very very slowly. "I think you should know you are wrong." Marcus' voice shook a little. His eyes were wide, apprehensive.

Esca's heartbeat pounded in his ears like thunder, like hoofbeats, like drums. "What," he asked, trying for levity, "so you're not a Roman?"

From his position on the couch, Marcus stared up at him, ignoring the joke. "Can I ask you a question?" he said, very softly, almost afraid.

Esca smiled. "You can, but I'll tell you the answer is yes."

And then Marcus pulled him down and kissed him, and it was like coming home, at last, at last.

* * *

Sometime much later Esca lifted his head off Marcus' chest and stared at him, wonderingly, in the wavering lamplight that cast his skin even more golden.

"You didn't know?" Marcus asked, sleepily. A lazy, sated smile curled about his lips, and Esca kissed him again, because he could.

"Didn't know what?"

"That I liked you. Or even that I liked men." He laughed. "I do not know how you missed that."

Esca shook his head. "I think perhaps I was too worried that you might notice me to pick up on anything. Should I have?"

Marcus slid his fingers through Esca's hair; the gentle touch was a comforting sensation. "Have you ever known me to notice a woman? By Pollux, Esca, I told you I didn't ever have any of the camp-followers! Didn't that strike you as a little odd?"

"And I should know that meant you had only men, as if you had to have only one or the other? I should know that meant you wanted me?"

Marcus tilted his head, conceding the point. "You didn't notice how I looked at you?"

"You've always looked the same way at me."

Marcus kissed him again. "Exactly."

"So now what?" It was the same question he had put to Marcus at the end of their quest; now they were beginning a new journey together.

Marcus smiled. "Now you become a warrior, or so I have heard."

"And then we go home?"

The smile was suddenly mischievous. "Well," said Marcus, drawing the word out, "there was something else I wanted to do first..."

* * *

Placidus pushed aside the unfortunate door-opener and stomped into the atrium, his boots ringing heavily on the tiled floor.

"I got your message," he said, and Esca did not have to look up to know he was scowling. "What is it, Aquila? I am a very busy man, you know; I cannot take time out of my duties just because you say I should come see you at once."

Esca did look up, anyway. He did not want to miss this. Placidus folded his arms across his chest and glared at both of them, sitting next to each other on the couch.

"I wanted to apologize for ignoring you in the forum the other day." A smile. "I am very sorry; I did not realize that you had been asking for me." Each word was very carefully pronounced.

Placidus continued to glare. "You brought me all this way to apologize, Aquila? Could you not have sent me a message?"

And then Marcus himself stepped out from behind the office curtain, smiling politely. "I suppose I could have," he said, "but I thought you might prefer to hear it from the man who was actually there."

Atar smiled, rising from the couch to stand next to his brother. Marcus threw his arm around Atar's shoulders.

"But-- but-- you--"

Placidus stared at Atar. He stared at Marcus. He stared at Atar again.

And then he fainted dead away, narrowly missing landing in the impluvium.

"I knew there was a reason I always wanted a brother," Marcus said, with satisfaction.


End file.
